He was a nice man and he was a good sort of . just warm and tender kind of chap. And he said, “Well were going to give you something just to stop your mind whizzing,” I remember him saying that. I don’t even know what it was, probably nothing. He was like, he made me feel okay my mum was not there, this is you and me, you’re an adult, this is between you and me, which I don’t think I kind of understood that actually. I didn’t think he was ever’ I don’t think I ever really realised he was my GP, I think he though, I thought he was our GP.

I’d never made an appointment to see the doctor off my own back, I’d never phoned up and said, “Can I see my doctor?”, probably would never have gone to see him if it weren’t for my mum making the appointment. Interesting isn’t it.

So that was helpful, and he was a kind of, I suppose before hed always seemed a sort of, kind of rather you know, a figure of authority to go with all the other ones. Then when he starts to talk to you, then you sort of you realise, God this man in his fifties knows what it’s like to be sixteen, talks to a lot of sixteen-year-olds, knows what it feels like to feel shit. And lots of people have felt the way I feel, and that really helps. And it sounds trite but it’s true. He was a good GP, he was a good GP.

And yeah, having a sympathetic GP who you do, can feel you’ll talk to. And I’m, I’m extremely grateful for him that he gave me his direct number and so if I, if you know, if it is a problem. I still have the number in my wallet now. And to feel that I could, you know, in a. in an emergency situation get on the phone and that is somebody who knows me.

It is somebody I feel I can talk to, and it is someone who can provide help as opposed to some sort of anonymous phone number that you can phone. This was someone specific who I know and I trust and you know, if I am at my absolute worst I have entire faith that, that he could do something to sort me out. And to, to have that was very important and another great source of strength and actually still is.

Shes good because she is human. She listens and she responds to me as a human being, not as a professional. She gives me time, as much time as I want sometimes. She cares and shes shown me she cares because she has rung me up before at home and said, ‘How are you? Will you come and see me tomorrow?’ because she knows I’m not going to ring and make an appointment because I’ I mean I’m in isolating mode and things are going wrong.

And so she is on the phone ringing me and she is encouraging me to talk, to go to her because I haven’t tended to go, only ever go to her in crisis. I’ve never gone at the beginning or the middle stage. I’m usually in a great crisis to have to go and see her. And shes been trying she has been trying all these years I have been seeing her, to educate me, to go before the crisis.

You know, ‘Why don’t you, you’ve been feeling this way for six months and it’s just got worse and worse, why didn’t you come before?’ And you know, ‘Come and see me next week. You know, ‘You never come, I’ll sit and listen. You know, she is a human being, she has made mistakes and that’s fine because she is a human being and I know shes a human being because she talks to me like, like I’m a human being and shes a human being. She is always fully present always as a person. Shes never standoffish or looking at her watch and thinking, you know about the next patient. Never.

It’s sort of hard going because [clears throat] my dad said to my doctor, Dr [name], he said, “Oh you know, I don’t like [participant’s name]’s hours”. Just because I mean, I do stay in bed until quite late in the morning… about usually about elevenish or so because I do feel quite achy and sore round the back and shoulders, and quite sort of achy and not perhaps pained but achy and sore. And when I do get up I feel all sort of odd feelings in the head, and so on, which they do wear off a bit later in the day though. But, so I mean at the moment I’m really taking every day, each day as it comes really [laughs] you see but’

But certainly Dr [name] my GP, she, as I say, she has been very helpful, and knows how I feel as I say and sort of says, “Well you’ve just got to sort of battle on with it really”, and sort of – that’s it. And like my dad says to her, “Oooh well you know”, cos hes sort of frustrated that I’m not getting anywhere as I say, and she says to him, “Well you know you’ve got to be patient [father’s name].” She says to him, “Because you know [participant’s name] will take it one step at a time with how hes feeling.” Which, you know I do, or I try to. And sort of that, that’s it really.

I couldn’t imagine being able to go along and tell him any of the things that were really going on inside me. Because how would that affect our friendship, and our friendship was a family friendship. You know, we went out socially, his wife and himself, and myself and my husband. Our children played together, and I felt that if he knew the real me, you know, he wouldn’t necessary want to go out and spend social time. And it was like uncovering something in myself and at that time I saw as, as a weakness.

Well I obviously’ it all became too much and I felt myself sort of falling onto his desk weeping and he was quite taken aback. You know, “What’s wrong?” and I… it all just started and it came out one thing after the other, how miserable I was feeling, and about, you know, how low I felt. And I couldn’t bear to continue living like that any longer. And that my friend had insisted that I come in and talk to him and, and he was really good. He wanted to know why I hadn’t spoken to him before and I said, “That I wanted, I wanted you to recognise that there was something not quite right, and you didn’t.”

Well shes been ever so nice. Shes been really, really kind and helpful, but I’ve always felt that she focused so much concern on me every time I went to see her that I got completely nervous and flustered. And my voice would just get quieter and quieter while I talked to her and anything I’d been thinking of talking to her about would just go out of my head.

It was just unnerving having that amount of attention focused on me.

We used to get, I suppose seven, eight, nine, round that sort of number to our depression support group. At one time we had a couple come in from [remote area] which is quite a way away because the facilities over there were poor they said. And they said that their doctors weren’t very sympathetic and helpful.

Now I’ve heard that once or twice. It may have changed, it may have changed Damien since I had it, but I’ve heard that once or twice from people, and I can only say how fortunate I am to have had the excellent support I had from my doctor. For me the most important thing was sympathetic helpful people. Doctors in the first instance, who were prepared to accept what it was’

From my experience in the support group many people did not get sympathetic doctors in their life, and I think for some of them they were, thought they were malingerers or told to pull yourself together, everybody gets this sort of thing.

I’m aware that over a very long period I used to have lots of, minor ailments, and again, I didn’t think that any of the GPs I saw took seriously anything that was wrong with me. And they certainly didn’t look at the bigger picture and think, ‘Is this person unhappy, is that what all of these ailments are about?’ So again I didn’t think I was necessarily, looking back, I don’t think anyone was taking a proper view of my health, as a whole, and saying perhaps it’s actually, you know, if I’m saying to this person, you know, it’s all in your head then maybe I should be looking at your head [laughs] and that decision didn’t seem to be made.

So you came away from these consultations feeling what?

Feeling there was something, feeling I was being a nuisance for going to the doctor. For saying there was something wrong with me when the doctor didn’t think there was something wrong with me, for time wasting. I felt like I was just being a drain on my doctor.

I was given antidepressants at one point, I think it was Prozac, and I was on those for about eighteen months or so. But I was never given a particular explanation of what they were to do with, other than they might help – have a side-effect of weight loss. Well that’s [laughs] I don’t think that’s a particularly good thing, but it helped me explain away why I was on antidepressants.

And we called the doctor out which was something we never did. And my GP came and he said, “Oh this is a recurrence of your depressive illness”. And I sort of said, “What depressive illness?” You know because nobody had ever said this is what you’ve got.

He had been the same doctor who had treated me when I’d had this post-natal depression thing when [Son’s name] was born. And I think I must have seen him about my nerves on and off in between, but I’ve probably missed one or two things out where, you know, something had triggered me to become very over anxious. I remember having a row with a friend and that completely flattened me as well.

So I had seen him about that. So he said, “This is your depressive illness. I am going to give you some antidepressants.” And I said, “But I don’t feel depressed, I feel anxious”. And he said, “No, it’s two sides of the same coin,” which again nobody had ever really explained to me. And he said, “Well get you right. It might take a week or two”. And it took five years.